One Fine Day

Dawn came around 6:30 a.m. Saturday. Converging weather fronts caused the local sky to be scattered with clouds of various sizes, shapes, and colors. A thin veil of cirrus clouds covered enough of the eastern horizon to delay full daylight for another 15 minutes. Swirling, angry thunderheads roamed the western horizon. Thunderbolts fired from their billowing tops as they moved en masse to the northeast. Arizona hasn’t had much rain in the last couple of years, so any rain is welcome even if it comes on a Saturday.

We surveilled the first fairway in partial darkness. The morning dew dampened our shoes and chilled our toes. Practice swings and stretching exercises began in earnest. Light overtook the darkness and before us, like Brigadoon appearing from the mist, the emerald contours of a desert links course emerged. We were to be the first golfers out this glorious fall morning, a special treat indeed.

The weather systems took the entire morning to sort themselves out. We finished our round in 3.5 hours, less than half the time it would take people who teed off later in the day. Our rounds were decent, a few negligent shots tempted our patience, but the fact that the course was open and ours deflected the ill-effects of squandered birdies and pars. A few sprinkles sputtered onto us on the 13th fairway.

By afternoon the storms had found common ground, gathered their forces, and moved on Phoenix. Thunder, lightning, some hail, and a steady rain soaked area. I was safe, dry, and comfortably ensconced in football watching chair when the rains came. A number of fine games graced the tube: Notre Dame winning, Michigan losing, Miami winning. Better yet, my brother and I would be setting off to see Arizona State and Washington play this evening. It would be my first football game of the year.

Arizona State hired a bright, innovative coach last year. In his first year, Dirk Koetter’s Sun Devils were physically and emotionally outmatched by bigger, stronger, PAC 10 opponents. Koetter was hired from Boise State where his teams were known for their attacking vertical offense and inventive defense. He replaced Bruce Snyder, a gentleman and intellect, who had lost his taste for coaching. Koetter inherited a team with considerable talent albeit infected with Coach Snyder’s malaise. Coach Snyder’s upperclassmen deserted Coach Koetter. The unhappy Sun Devils were drilled week in and week out.

Koetter weeded his team of malcontents during the off season. ASU came into season with a handful of upperclassmen on the roster and most experts picked the young ASU team to finish 9th in the PAC 10. The season got off on an ominous note when the Sun Devils visited Nebraska in the season opener. First game jitters, the horrifying specter of playing before the bloodthirsty, front-running fans in Lincoln, and special team foul-ups lead to a misleading 48-10 defeat for the young Sun Devils.

Since that first game, the Sun Devils have won six of the seven games they’ve played. They have marquee wins against Oregon and Oregon State. They’ve overmatched a couple of non-conference cream puffs Eastern Washington, Central Florida, and San Diego State. They demolished Stanford. Their lone loss was to North Carolina in a very strange, yet educational, 38-35 game. Tonight’s match against the powerhouse Huskies would test the mettle of Koetter’s young team.

My brother and I were born and raised in Michigan. Weather is part of our heritage. Neither he nor I would miss a football game because of rain. When the weather’s bad, a fan gears up to ward off the elements. I inventoried my wardrobe as the rain fell. Desert living had taken a toll on my foul weather gear. I was short the parkas, gloves, hat, and boots that most Michiganders have at the ready. I’d need Mother Nature’s help to keep me warm and dry.

Mother Nature’s run lasted 90 minutes, or so. A good soaking cleansed the air of dirt, dust, and particulates. The desert smelled of wet creosote. Drought hearty plants, such as lantana, sucked in the moisture and would later burst forth in flower. The air was damp, heavy, and chilled. It was perfect football weather.

All fans love winners and Phoenix is no exception. Phoenix loves winners and ignores losers. The young Sun Devils are in the no man’s land between winners and losers. Front running fans haven’t yet embraced them. Tickets are easy to find and cheap to buy. Right now, they’re the best entertainment value in town.

The population of Phoenix is nearly three million. Most current Phoenicians are from somewhere else. Sports loyalties of most Phoenicians work like this: fans root for their previous hometown team/alma mater first. Then they root for whichever Phoenix team happens to be winning. It is not uncommon for Phoenix teams to play home games where more Phoenix residents are rooting for the opposition, especially when the local team plays teams from the Rust Belt, New York, or Philly. Most Phoenicians are more loyal to their hometown than they are to their new neighborhood.

Phoenix teams rely on rabid fans for their season ticket base. They know if they open the gates that rabid fans will come. There are enough rabid football, hockey, baseball, and basketball fans to fill the local arenas and stadiums to half their capacities. The remainder of seats sit empty for next Phoenix team to win regularly or for the next big out of town draw to come to town.

Phoenix teams spend aggressive courting loyal fans. Loyal fans are a much harder catch. Loyal fans spend their ticket money to connect with the past and the present. Loyal fans take time to nurture. Oftentimes, loyal fandom is passed from generation to generation. Loyal fandom is sometimes a birthright. The longest tenured professional team in town, the Suns, began playing in 1968. At best, two generations of Phoenicians share Suns memories. Compare that with multiple generations of Detroit Lions fans swapping tales and memories from the Lions’ glory days as they settle into their Thanksgiving dinner. The Lions are threaded through life. The Suns are looking for the eye of the needle.

So it is that my brother find the stadium sixty percent filled for what looks on paper to be a fine college football game. Washington, though a little off their normal form, has an illustrious football history. Thousands of fans have made their way from Seattle to Tempe for tonight’s game. Washington fans come in all shapes, sizes, and ages—a testament to their generations of loyal, loving fans. Maybe the rain kept people away. Maybe.

Too bad for Washington fans that the powers that be at UW settled for the overrated Coach Neuheisel, the enfant terrible of college football coaches. Neuheisel, who guided Tempe McClintock High School to the Arizona 5A State Championship, unexpectedly jumped from the University of Colorado to Washington a couple of years ago. Earlier this year, Colorado was put on NCAA probation for violations incurred during Neuheisel’s tenure. Neuheisel coaches Washington while Colorado suffers for his sins. Hmmm! What’s wrong there?

Anyway, when it comes to coaching, Neuheisel is all hat and no cattle. When the going gets tough, Neuheisel takes off. He left UCLA in a pique when he didn’t get the head job there. He left the Colorado program in the gutter. And if Saturday night’s performance is judge, the Washington program is beginning to sputter. Neuheisel paced the sidelines without enthusiam. His team was looking down the barrel of three straight losses. Huskie fans, a long way from home, didn't like what they saw.

ASU dominated the Huskies 27-16. Washington scored twice in the last four minutes against the ASU scout team. Neuheisel’s charges were lethargic and unprepared. ASU was two steps quicker all night long. Huskies fans were grumbling. ASU fans were delighted.

Koetter’s charges were brilliant. They were well prepared. On change of possessions they sprinted into formations and called signals quickly. Washington was left to run all over the field trying to match ASU’s deployments. Receivers were free to run by defenders who were sprinting into their positions. On fourth and short, ASU lined up in the hoary T formation—two halfbacks and a fullback all lined up in the backfield. Washington had no idea who was getting the ball and where they were going. (On one fourth and short the fullback carried for a first down; on the second fourth and short a halfback dropped a pass when he was 10 yards behind the Washington defense and about to score an uncontested touchdown.)

Not a bad day. First off in the morning. A Sun Devil victory at night. Wish everyday was like this.

Did the SF Giants Play on Sunday?

Dig the San Francisco's Chronicle's Home Page. Slim mention of the Giants. Here's a link to better coverage.

Keep Dusty Baseball. He's a good man.

Tillman Update

Former Arizona Cardinal Safety Pat Tillman graduated from Army Basic Training last week. Here's the story. Good reading. Go Tillie!

Bonds v. The Babe

Throughout the World Series' I kept hearing that Barry Bonds is the Babe Ruth of our time. My initial reaction was, "Geez, what a shame. We get one crack at Babe Ruth and we end up with Barry Bonds. What a disappointment." Nothing against Bonds, mind you. He's a great hitter. My beef, as always, is with the clowns who make these silly comparisons. They're the TV/radio people who believe that hyperbole is a substitute for wisdom, fact, and reason.

Ruth was a genuine Algeresque success. Ruth rose from an ash heap to become a folk hero. Ruth's excesses, his prodigious baseball career, and place in our time added up to create his legend. Bonds was bred to hit home runs. Bonds' pedigree is hall of fame. Bonds is doing what he was suppossed to do. Bonds' towering, powerful homer runs will be long remembered, but does his "story" have what it takes to become legend? We'll see. After all it isn't finished yet.

Tip of the Day

Surprised to find Bernard Lewis recent title What Went Wrong listed among the five bestselling 9/11-related titles (USA Today Life Section, page one, lower right-hand corner factoid).

For those of you unfamiliar with Prof Lewis and his scholarship, take a few minutes to read the transcript of Prof Lewis' interview with Brian Lamb that was broadcast on CSPAN’s Booknotes program December 30, 2001. Very good stuff.

All Things Must Pass

It was 7:00 p.m. last Friday evening. Dusk had settled into early evening. Our doors and windows were open and a soft, warm breeze came into the house. Summer had finally expired. Sirens in the distance came closer. The sound of heavy diesel engines rumbled down the street. I sprang from my seat, headed out the door, and saw a fire truck, an ambulance, and three police cars four doors down.

A few neighbors, who like me, heard the arrival, came out to check the scene. Police were running. Fireman and paramedics were donning gear and grabbing cases. All of them were heading quickly into Verne's garage. I've met Verne at a couple of neighborhood events. Verne's early sixtyish with a salt and pepper pampadour. He flew a flag. He had a couple of cars. His wife seemed nice.

I made the scene in 30 seconds. Police tape set up a perimeter that cordoned off Verne's driveway. I got as far as the tape and stopped. There was Verne flat on his back. He was surrounded by paramedics and police officers. One paramedic wearing a face sheild and a plastic gown was pumping on Verne's chest. Other paramedics were preparing IVs and setting them into Verne's veins.

I crossed the street to get a better view. A slight separation between a fire truck and an ambulance gave me a view of the entire garage. The parameds were working furiously on Verne's chest. Verne wasn't moving. His next door neighbor, a handsome young couple, ducked under the police tape to comfort Verne's wife who was giving a statement to the police outside of the garage. She could not see the efforts being taken on Verne's behalf.

I noticed the police were securing an even larger area with police tape. A "T" intersection lies a hundred feet, or so, from Verne's driveway. The police were securing all side of the intersection. Another fire engine made the scene. This truck stopped short of the intersection and raised it's night lights to illuminate the intersection. I moved back across the street to stand in the driveway next to Verne's.

I came up to a cluster of neighbors who were as transfixed by the scene as I was. It was certain that Verne was in distress. No one was sure what had happened. Little by little, information came our way. Someone said that Verne, a gun collector and marksman, had been cleaning a gun that discharged. The shot missed him, but caused a catastrophic heart attack nonethelss. Another said that he had shot himself, accidently, in the chest. We were within 20 yards of Verne and couldn't see any blood.

Someone else said that whatever happened happend at 5:30 and Verne's wife found him at about 6:50 when she came home. No one was sure. Whatever happened, Verne was in trouble. A helicopter hovered above. One neighbor made a lame crack about making it on the local news. But this wasn't a news helicopter. It was a medi-evac copter and hit was going to land on our street. The copter came in low and slow, maybe 100 yards overhead. Hundreds birds that were peacefully slumbering took startled flight under the descending helicopter. The pilot put it down delicately in the "T" intersection just below the 2nd fire truck whose lights illuminated the landing spot. Within seconds, the trauma team from the copter was in Verne's garage.

The trauma team was given a quick debriefing from the paramedics. Overt attempts to revive Verne were stopped. Verne now had IV, pulse monitors, O2 mask affixed to him. He was placed on a backboard and lifted onto the stretcher for transports to the helicopter. They wheeled Verne past us. He didn't look good. The guy next to me said Verne was a goner. Quickly, Verne was in the helicopter. Seconds later, the copter was airborne and Verne was gone.

We looked around, startled, shocked. The fireman packed up their belongings. One fireman wearing protective gear picked up all bio-related materials and placed them in a biohazzard bag. Police officers huddled. One officer left to resume regular patrol. We gathered to share information. Hopeful neighbors reasoned that a helicopter wouldn't have been called if Verne was gone. I wasn't sure. I saw them working Verne hard and he wasn't responding. I listened while his other neighbors comforted his wife. She was hustled into a police car and driven to the hospital.

The story stood that he had accidentally shot himself. Where was the blood? Where was the mess? Someone said that there was some blood, but not much. I didn't hold much hope for Verne, but what do I know?

Next door neighbor Wendi came by Saturday morning with the news. Verne passed. She didn't know exactly how it happened. It just happened. Verne and his wife were planning on spending the weekend at their cabin target shooting. It's a damn shame.

I not a gun guy, but I am not an anti-gun guy either. Arthritis has had its way with my trigger fingers.

A Smile on Your Face. A Song in Your Heart.

Written and published via e-mail 12/13/01

One of the many joys of knowing Thom Ehle was meeting and befriending his mother, Ruth. She had a quick, genuine, heartfelt laugh and one-the-spot rejoinders for all wisecracks. She had a sharp wit, a twinkle in her eye, and an omnipresent smile. She punned and rhymed in an easy, lyrical, musical style. She made you feel welcome. She exuded warmth and love.

There’s a lot of Ruthie in Our Boy Thommy (OBT). For the last few days, I had the pleasure of shadowing OBT as he went about his business in the City of Angels. We visited studios, he tuned a couple of theatres, and we attended the premiere of “Vanilla Sky.” For me, it was a quick romp in the heady, ethereal world of moviemaking. For OBT it was SOP.

OBT is known as “Coach” around the studios. He told me why once, but I forgot, embarrassed I didn’t ask again. As you know, constructing a movie is a complex business. It calls for the expertise in both the arts and sciences. Art rules the cinema with technology playing a complimentary role. Sound is the center of Coach’s moviemaking cosmos. Layering and mixing sound is an intricate, technical exercise seasoned with an understanding art. It’s not an exercise for some tin-eared techno-geek who can stumble behind the mixing equipment. The best are those solve the inherent conflicts between people, science, and art to create coherent, well-told stories.

On its face, ego, fashion, and cosmetics rule Hollywood. The underbelly of Hollywood, where the people who build movies reside, is a much different place. It’s a meritocracy where skill reigns and fashion is a matter of personal taste. Hours can be long and are punctuated by lengthy waits while machines are reset, recalibrated, and readied for the next task. Everyone is given appropriate time to do their job, within reason. Every job is critical to story that is being told.

We visited a number of dubbing studios at Fox and Warner Brothers, and I met a number of OBT’s colleagues. Everyone was as genuinely happy to see OBT as we are when we see him. OBT brings his considerable expertise to the set, everyone does. More importantly, OBT brings Ruthie with him, and Ruthie plays well in Hollywood. People are happy to see OBT because he makes them feel warm. He makes them laugh. He has a twinkle in his eye. He has a good word for everyone. They trust his skill. They value his friendship. He has a lot of friends in the biz.

OBT is on the Hollywood varsity. He’s first-string in the big leagues. I was speaking with Vanilla Sky’s Post Production director while Thommy tuned the theatre. Her job is to sweat all things, big and small, and on this day there were plenty of both. There is real money on the line, and today is a critical day in the life of the film. She took the time to ask me what I thought of the operation. I told her that I was amazed that everyone treated their colleagues with patience and respect during such a tense, anxious time. She nodded her head and said “that’s because they are the best in the business.”

Proud to know you Thommy. Thanks for letting me tag along.

Cheers.

The Fifty-First State?

As promised to an e-mailer, here's a link to James Fallow's excellent article in the most recent issue of Atlantic Monthly.

Enjoy

Take It to the Hoop!

Written and sent as an e-mail 1/10/02

The final seconds were ticking off another regular NFL season. The dreaded post-partum, end of season blues was creeping about waiting to jump me. It was a beautiful Sunday, sunny and soft with highs in the 70s. I needed to do something. So I went out and bought a basketball.

I bought a nice rock. It’s a Spaulding emblazoned with NBA markings including the Jerry West caricature of an angular White guy driving toward the hoop and the signature of David Stern. My ball is branded as “official indoor/outdoor,” whatever that means, and is composed of Zi/O composite leather. It has the look of a warn, dark leather ball that has been used exclusively in the warm, gentle climate of a hardwood gym.

My ball and I went immediate over to the local schoolyard for a quick test. The court was empty. The school yard park had scattered groups who, like me, were out to enjoy the day. There was a guy trying to teach his girlfriend how to ride her bike, without success. A family, or two, threw Frisbees to themselves and to their dogs. A couple people played tennis on the adjacent court.

I dribbled onto the court and took what I remembered to be a jump shot. Just beyond the free-throw line, I took a quick dribble, gathered the ball at my chin, and did my best to elevate my legs and arms to release the ball in a gentle arc. Immediately upon release a chorus of cracks rose from my arms, shoulders, and back. The ball fell hopelessly short of the rim.

My last true jump shot was decades ago, as in three decades ago. Still, I was shocked at what seemed to me to be sudden erosion of my skills. This, of course, was wistful thinking on my part. Undeterred, I worked out a few kinks and eventually found my range, which was distressingly close to the basket.

I shot around a bit longer and then headed home to see if Lori was interested in sharing the rest of this wonderful day out on the court. She was and we did. Lori, a former Osceola, Nebraska Bulldog, has a nice set shot, but, like me, her range has shortened over time. After loosening a bit, I found a little more range and then found something nostalgic and something new.

I played BBall through the JV level in high school. My career in the underbelly of high school sport was lengthened when four classmates were elevated to the varsity as sophomores. With four open spots on the JV, I comfortably made the squad. I had a nice jumper with decent range. I excelled at the free-throw line, which fueled a momentary brush with notoriety.

We were playing Grand Rapids South on the Friday that began holiday break. GRS had uniforms emblazoned with the Stars and Bars, and they called themselves the Rebels, when in fact they were big, blond Dutchman. The crowd for the game was thick and festive.

GRS was no match for the mighty, mighty Trojans. We swept the JV and Varsity game with relative ease. I played most of the 3rd and 4th quarters. By the mid-fourth quarter, we had scored in the low-mid sixties, which was a lot points then.

The game wore on, the benches were emptied, and the crowd continued to grow. The level of play reflected the inexperience of the contestants. The large crowd made it worse. I was fouled on a made shot after an offensive rebound. I stepped to the line and made the free throw.

Next time up the court, the overeager kid who was guarding me fouled me as I was reversing the ball at the top of the key. He was overanxious and a little intimidated by the crowd. I stepped to the free throw line for the front half of a one-and-one. Our score held firm at 68.

Back then, the number 69, especially among the high school crowd, was emblematic of something naughty and rebellious. Perhaps an adventurous few had assumed the position, but, for most it was the stuff of foreign films and fantasy. By historic accident, we were the class of 1969, and we took the stewardship of our number seriously. We were delighted to have our graduation year double as something roguish.

The student section of the ELHS gym was packed and somehow Baskett, Blair, maybe Overholt, and I am not sure who else wedged their way into the front row adjacent to the free throw line. My buddies weren’t more than 15 yards from where I stood to shoot the free throws. I would guess, in fact I would bet, that the boys had a Schlitz, or two, on their way to the game. They were calling my name and stomping their feet as I went through my preshot routine while the rest of crowd grew still. All was quiet as I finished my dribbles and brought the ball to my chest and readied for my shot. Then, Seadog, in his best, croaking Vance Hamilton voice bellowed, “C’Mon Sam.”

Inside I smiled, but I remained steadfast. I readied the ball and in one smooth motion let it fly. Nothing but net. The score read 69. The crowd went wild, especially my dear friends in the front row. I stole a glance their way and saw them pointing at me, yelling my name, stomping their feet, and punching each other in the arm.

The ref retrieved the ball and shoved a bounce pass directly back to me for the back end of the one-and-one. I went through the same preshot routine and Seadog provided the same encouragement. Shot two was as true as the first. The fan reaction was less riotous and a smattering of boos fell from the crowd when my second free changed the scoreboard to 70. The boys in front row continued their support.

Back to the yesterday and the schoolyard. Watched any Cousy-era Celtic stuff on ESPN Classic? This was an era when the two-handed set shot began to evolve toward today’s one-handed floating jumper. Then, jumpers were more like hoppers, in which contestants took a small jump and released the ball with both arms

I tried one of these shots yesterday, and I made it. And it felt good. My jump shot has devolved into a ‘50s era two-handed hop shot. I know that some of you must have shot around with your dad. They shot the same way. I found that I could double my range. I made a shitload of free throws. I found my game. Now I need to work on going to my right, and, as always, work hard on my quicks.

Cheers

Cryptonomicon

Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon is an ambitious, dense, picaresque dance that weaves its way through three generations from WWII to present. Cryptonomicon is richly jewelled with interesting characters, cryptography and mathematics, the birth of computers and the modern electronics industry, and dawn of the internet. Woven into story is the following excerpt sent to me by my friend Tom Fagan.

Excerpt from Cryptonomicon By Neal Stephenson

[A conversation in a Manila jail cell between an old defrocked priest named Enoch Root and a young computer hacker named Randy Waterhouse. Root was a spy who worked with Randy’s mathematician/crypto-analyst grandfather in WWII.]

“Once again your understanding of the local culture is conspicuous,” Enoch Root says. He shifts position on the bed and his crucifix swings back and forth ponderously. He also has a medallion around his neck with something startling written on it.

“Do you have some occult symbol there?” Randy asks, squinting.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I can make out the word ‘occult’ on your medallion there.”

“It says ignoti et quasi occulti, which means ‘unknown and partly hidden’ or words to that effect,” says Enoch Root. “It is the motto of a society to which I belong. You must know that the word ‘occult’ does not intrinsically have anything to do with Satanic rituals and drinking blood and all of that. It—”

“I was trained as an astronomer,” Randy says. “So I learned all about occultation—the concealment of one body behind another, as during an eclipse."

“Oh. Well, then, I’ll shut up.”

“In fact, I know more than you might think about occultation," Randy says. It might seem like he’s beating a dead horse, except that he catches the eye of Enoch Root while he’s saying it, and gives a significant sidelong glance at his computer. Root processes this for a moment and then nods.

“Who’s the lady in the middle? The Virgin Mary?” Randy asks.

Root fingers the medallion without looking at it, and says, “Reasonable guess. But wrong. It’s Athena.”

“The Greek goddess?”

“Yes.”

“How do you square that with Christianity?”

“When I phoned you the other day, how did you know it was me?”

“I don’t know. I just recognized you.”

“Recognized me? What does that mean? You didn’t recognize my voice.

“Is this some roundabout way of answering my question about Athena worship v. Christianity?”

“Doesn’t it strike you as remarkable that you can look at a stream of characters on the screen of your computer—e-mail from someone you've never seen—and later ‘recognize’ the same person on the phone? How does that work, Randy?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. The brain can do some weird—”

“Some complain that e-mail is impersonal—that your contact with me, during the e-mail phase of our relationship, was mediated by wires and screens and cables. Some would say that’s not as good as conversing face-to-face. And yet our seeing of things is always mediated by corneas, retinas, optic nerves, and some neural machinery that takes the information from the optic nerve and propagates it into our minds. So, is looking at words on a screen so very much inferior? I think not; at least then you are conscious of the distortions. Whereas, when you see someone with your eyes, you forget about the distortions and imagine you are experiencing them purely and immediately.”

“So what’s your explanation of how I recognized you?”

“I would argue that inside your mind was some pattern of neurological activity that was not there before you exchanged e-mail with me. The Root Representation. It is not me. I’m this big slug of carbon and oxygen and some other stuff on this cot right next to you. The Root Rep, by contrast, is the thing that you’ll carry around in your brain for the rest of your life, barring some kind of major neurological insult, that your mind uses to represent me. When you think about me, in other words, you’re not thinking about me qua this big slug of carbon, you are thinking about the Root Rep. Indeed, some day you might get released from jail and run into someone who would say, ‘You know, I was in the Philippines once, running around in the boondocks, and I ran into this old fart who started talking to me about Root Reps.’ And by exchanging notes (as it were) with this fellow you would be able to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the Root Rep in your brain and the Root Rep in his brain were generated by the same actual slug of carbon and oxygen and so on: me.

“And this has something to do, again, with Athena?”

“If you think of the Greek gods as real supernatural beings who lived on Mount Olympus, no. But if you think of them as being in the same class of entities as the Root Rep, which is to say, patterns of neurological activity that the mind uses to represent things that it sees, or thinks it sees, in the outside world, then yes. Suddenly, Greek gods can be just as interesting and relevant as real people. Why? Because, in the same way as you might one day encounter another person with his own Root Rep so, if you were to have a conversation with an ancient Greek person, and he started talking about Zeus, you might—once you got over your initial feelings of superiority—discover that you had some mental representations inside your own mind that, though you didn’t name them Zeus and didn’t think of them as a big hairy thunderbolt-hurling son of a Titan, nonetheless had been generated as a result of interactions with entities in the outside world that are the same as the ones that cause the Zeus Representation to appear in the Greek’s mind. And here we could talk about the Plato’s Cave thing for a while—the Veg-O-Matic of metaphors—it slices! it dices!”

“In which,” Randy says, “the actual entities in the real world are the three-dimensional, real things that are casting the shadows, this Greek dude and I are the wretches chained up looking at the shadows of those things on the walls, and it’s just that the shape of the wall in front of me is different from the shape of the wall in front of the Grecian—”

—so that given a shadow projected on your wall is going to adopt a different shape from the same shadow projected on his wall, where the different wall-shapes here correspond to let’s say your modern scientific worldview versus his ancient pagan worldview.”

“Yeah. That Plato’s Cave metaphor.”

……………
“Okay. So the Athena that you honor on your medallion isn’t a supernatural being—”
—who lives on a mountain in Greece, et cetera, but rather whatever entity, pattern, trend, or what-have-you that, when perceived by ancient Greek people, and filtered through their perceptual machinery and their pagan worldview, produced the internal mental representation that they dubbed Athena. The distinction being quite important because Athena-the-supernatural-chick-with-the-helmet is of course nonexistent, but ‘Athena’ the external-generator-of-the-internal-representation-dubbed-Athena-by-the—ancient—Greeks must have existed back then, or else the internal representation never would have been generated, and if she existed back then, the chances are excellent that she exists now, and if all that is the case, then whatever ideas the ancient Greeks (who, though utter shitheads in many ways, were terrifyingly intelligent people) had about her are probably still quite valid.”

“Okay, but why Athena and not Demeter or someone?”

“Well, it’s a truism that you can’t understand a person without knowing something about her family background, and so we have to do kind of a quick Cliffs Notes number on the ancient Greek Theogony here. We start out with Chaos, which is where all theogonies start, and which I like to think of as a sea of white noise—totally random broadband static. And for reasons that we don’t really understand, certain polarities begin to coalesce from this—Day, Night, Darkness, Light, Earth, Sea. Personally, I like to think of these as crystals—not in the hippy-dippy Californian sense, but in the hardass technical sense of resonators, that received certain channels buried in the static of Chaos. At some point, out of certain incestuous couplings among such entities, you get Titans. And it’s arguably kind of interesting to note that the Titans provide really the full complement of basic gods—you’ve got the sun god, Hyperion, and an ocean god, Oceanus, and so on. But they all get overthrown in a power struggle called the Titanomachia and replaced with new gods like Apollo and Poseidon, who end up filling the same slots in the organizational chart, as it were. Which is kind of interesting in that it seems to tie in with what I was saying about the same entities or patterns persisting through time, but casting slightly different shaped shadows for different people. Anyway, so now we have the Gods of Olympus as we normally think of them: Zeus, Hera, and so on.

“A couple of basic observations about these: first, they all, with one exception I’ll get to soon, were produced by some kind of sexual coupling, either Titan-Titaness or God-Goddess or God-Nymph or God-Woman or basically Zeus and whom- or whatever Zeus was fucking on any particular day. Which brings me to the second basic observation, which is that the Gods of Olympus are the most squalid and dysfunctional family imaginable. And yet there is something about the motley asymmetry of this pantheon that makes it more credible. Like the Periodic Table of the Elements or the family tree of the elementary particles, or just about any anatomical structure that you might pull up out of a cadaver, it has enough of a pattern to give our minds something to work on and yet an irregularity that indicates some kind of organic provenance-you have a sun god and a moon goddess, for example, which is all clean and symmetrical, and yet over here is Hera, who has no role whatsoever except to be a literal bitch goddess, and then there is Dionysus who isn’t even fully a god—he’s half human—but gets to be in the Pantheon anyway and sit on Olympus with the Gods, as if you went to the Supreme Court and found Bozo the Clown planted among the justices.

“Now what I’m getting to here is that Athena was exceptional in every way. To begin with she wasn’t created through sexual reproduction in any kind of normal sense; she sprang fully-formed from the head of Zeus. According to some versions of the story, this happened after Zeus fucked Metis, about whom we’ll hear more in due course. Then he was warned that Metis would later give birth to a son who would dethrone him, and so he ate her, and later Athena came out of his head. Whether you buy into the Metis story or not, I think we can still agree that something a little peculiar was going on with the nativity of Athena. She was also exceptional in that she did not participate in the moral squalor of Olympus; she was a virgin.”

“Aha! I knew that was a picture of a virgin on your medallion.”

“Yes, Randy, you do have a keen eye for virgins.

…….
“So anyway, you probably learned in elementary school that Athena wears a helmet, carries a shield called Aegis, and is the goddess of war and of wisdom, as well as crafts—such as the aforementioned weaving. Kind of an odd combination, to say the least! Especially since Ares was supposed to be the god of war and Hestia the goddess of home economics—why the redundancy? But a lot’s been screwed up in translation. See, the kind of wisdom that we associate with old farts like yours truly, and which I’m trying to impart to you here, Randy Waterhouse, was called dike by the Greeks. That’s not what Athena was the goddess of! She was the goddess of metis, which means cunning or craftiness, and which you’ll recall was the name of her mother in one version of the story. Interestingly Metis (the personage, not the attribute) provided young Zeus with the potion that caused Cronus to vomit up all of the baby gods he’d swallowed, setting the stage for the whole Titanomachia. So now the connection to crafts becomes obvious—crafts are just the practical application of metis.”

“I associate the word ‘crafts’ with making crappy belts and ashtrays in summer camp,” Randy says. “I mean, who wants to be the fucking goddess of macrame?”
“It’s all bad translation. The word that we use today, to mean the same thing, is really technology.”

“Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Instead of calling Athena the goddess of war, wisdom, and macrame, then, we should say war and technology. And here again we have the problem of an overlap with the jurisdiction of Ares, who’s supposed to be the god of war. And let’s just say that Ares is a complete asshole. His personal aides are Fear and Terror and sometimes Strife. He is constantly at odds with Athena even though—maybe because—they are nominally the god and goddess of the same thing—war. Heracles, who is one of Athena’s human proteges, physically wounds Ares on two occasions, and even strips him of his weapons at one point! You see the fascinating thing about Ares is that he’s completely incompetent. He’s chained up by a couple of giants and imprisoned in a bronze vessel for thirteen months. He’s wounded by one of Odysseus’s drinking buddies during the Iliad. Athena knocks him out with a rock at one point. When he’s not making a complete idiot of himself in battle, he’s screwing every human female he can get his hands on, and—get this—his sons are all what we would today call serial killers. And so it seems very clear to me that Ares really was a god of war as such an entity would be recognized by people who were involved in wars all the time, and had a really clear idea of just how stupid and ugly wars are.

“Whereas Athena is famous for being the backer of Odysseus, who, let’s not forget, is the guy who comes up with the idea for the Trojan Horse. Athena guides both Odysseus and Heracles through their struggles, and although both of these guys are excellent fighters, they win most of their battles through cunning or (less pejoratively) metis. And although both of them engage in violence pretty freely (Odysseus likes to call himself ‘sacker of cities’) it’s clear that they are being held up. in opposition to the kind of mindless, raging violence associated with Ares and his offspring—Heracles even personally rids the world of a few of Ares’s psychopathic sons. I mean, the records aren’t totally clear—it’s not like you can go to the Thebes County Courthouse and look up the death certificates on these guys—but it appears that Heracles, backed up by Athena all the way, personally murders at least half of the Hannibal Lecterish offspring of Ares.

“So insofar as Athena is a goddess of war, what really do we mean by that? Note that her most famous weapon is not her sword but her shield Aegis, and Aegis has a gorgon’s head on it, so that anyone who attacks her is in serious danger of being turned to stone. She’s always described as being calm and majestic, neither of which adjectives anyone ever applied to Ares.”

“I don’t know, Enoch. Defensive versus offensive war, maybe?”

“The distinction is overrated.

…….
“Now in many other mythologies you can find gods that have parallels with Athena. The Sumerians had Enki, the Norse had Loki. Loki was an inventor-god, but psychologically he had more in common with Ares; he was not only the god of technology but the god of evil too, the closest thing they had to the Devil. Native Americans had tricksters—creatures full of cunning—like Coyote and Raven in their mythologies, but they didn’t have technology, yet, and so they hadn’t coupled the Trickster with Crafts to generate this hybrid Technologist-god.”

“Okay,” Randy says, “so obviously where you’re going with this is that there must be some universal pattern of events that when filtered through the sensory apparatus and the neural rigs of primitive, superstitious people always gives rise to internal mental representations that they identify as gods, heroes, etc.”

“Yes. And these can be recognized across cultures, in the same way that two persons with Root Reps in their mind might ‘recognize’ me by comparing notes.”

“So, Enoch, you want me to believe that these gods—which aren’t really gods, but it’s a nice concise word—all share certain things in common precisely because the external reality that generated them is consistent and universal across cultures.”

“That is right. And in the case of Trickster gods the pattern is that cunning people tend to attain power that un-cunning people don’t. And all cultures are fascinated by this. Some of them, like many Native Americans, basically admire it, but never couple it with technological development. Others, like the Norse, hate it and identify it with the Devil.”

“Hence the strange love-hate relationship that Americans have with hackers.”

“That’s right.”

“Hackers are always complaining that journalists cast them as bad guys. But you think that this ambivalence is deeper—seated.”

“In some cultures. The Vikings—to judge from their mythology— would instinctively hate hackers. But something different happened with the Greeks. The Greeks liked their geeks. That’s how we get Athena.”

“I’ll buy that—but where does the war-goddess thing come in?”

“Let’s face it, Randy, we’ve all known guys like Ares. The pattern of human behavior that caused the internal mental representation known as Ares to appear in the minds of the ancient Greeks is very much with us today, in the form of terrorists, serial killers, riots, pogroms, and aggressive tinhorn dictators who turn out to be military incompetents. And yet for all their stupidity and incompetence, people like that can conquer and control large chunks of the world if they are not resisted.”

……………..
“Who is going to fight them off, Randy?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to say we are.

“Sometimes it might be other Ares-worshippers, as when Iran and Iraq went to war and no one cared who won. But if Ares-worshippers aren’t going to end up running the whole world, someone needs to do violence to them. This isn’t very nice, but it’s a fact: civilization requires an Aegis. And the only way to fight the bastards off in the end is through intelligence. Cunning. Metis.”

“Tactical cunning, like Odysseus and the Trojan Horse, or—”

“Both that, and technological cunning. From time to time there is a battle that is out-and-out won by a new technology—like longbows at Crecy. For most of history those battles happen only every few centuries—you have the chariot, the compound bow, gunpowder, ironclad ships, and so on. But something happens around, say, the time that the Monitor, which the Northerners believe to be the only ironclad warship on earth, just happens to run into the Merrimack, of which the Southerners believe exactly the same thing, and they pound the hell out of each other for hours and hours. That’s as good a point as any to identify as the moment when a spectacular rise in military technology takes off—it’s the elbow in the exponential curve. Now it takes the world’s essentially conservative military establishments a few decades to really comprehend what has happened, but by the time we’re in the thick of the Second World War, it’s accepted by everyone who doesn’t have his head completely up his ass that the war’s going to be won by whichever side has the best technology. So on the German side alone we’ve got rockets, jet aircraft, nerve gas, wire-guided missiles. And on the Allied side we’ve got three vast efforts that put basically every top-level hacker, nerd, and geek to work: the codebreaking thing, which as you know gave rise to’ the digital computer; the Manhattan Project, which gave us nuclear weapons; and the Radiation Lab, which gave us the modern electronics industry. Do you know why we won the Second World War, Randy?”

“I think you just told me.”

“Because we built better stuff than the Germans?”

“Isn’t that what you said?”

“But why did we build better stuff, Randy?”

“I guess I’m not competent to answer, Enoch, I haven’t studied that period well enough.”

“Well the short answer is that we won because the Germans worshipped Ares and we worshipped Athena.

Who's to Blame in Bali?

James Lileks nails the Bali atrocity. Check out Lileks' blog by taking the link in the left-hand frame.

DC Sniper Updates


Read an e-mail from a friend this a.m. who was trumpeting the DC Sniper/al-Qaeda conspiracy theory. Same friend doubts the link between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Hmmm!

If your fetish for hysterical, competitve cable network coverage has begun to sour, check out these sites: Jim Henley's Unqualied Offerings, which includes the following delicious passage:

Upon Further Review - Note that the police deprecation does more than kick the props out from under the "an AK-74 makes it more likely we're dealing with middle eastern terrorists" theory. It also wrecks UO's "He's getting more brazen, so it's less likely he's an al Qaeda operative" deduction too.

Gosh this detective stuff is hard.

NB: Kevin Maroney didn't think much of the "cool, collected al Qaeda operative" theory anyway. He e-mailed

Remember that Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was a "cool, collected al Qaeda operative", but many people probably owe their lives to the fact that he couldn't resist showing off. He could have gone to the bathroom to light the bombs, but he apparently wanted to see the faces of his fellow passengers as he did so.

Unqualified Offerings thinks simply that his al Qaeda guidance counselors assessed Richard Reid's talents pretty well when they slotted him for a one-and-done "martyrdom operation." Theoretically the shooter is not a total clown, based on his ability to elude capture so far. But it no longer matters. We're back to square one.

And don't miss Glenn Reynolds, who does a brilliant job synthesizing a massive amount of information.

Great reading.

Hot Stove League

Rumors are floating that the Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox are contemplating a trade. The D-Backs would send Eurbiel Durazo, Byung-Hyun Kim, and Tony Womack to Boston for the redoubtable Nomar Garciaparra! What could the BoSox be thinking? The rumor started in Boston and was picked up locally by Channel 12. Think Nomar in the desert. Smart money would have to say it will never happen.

Durazo can hit the ball out of the county, but he's fallen from grace with the D-Backs front office. Durazo declined to play right field during the playoffs telling Manager Brenly he'd rather play first base. The problems with Durazo: he sucks wherever you play him as a fielder; he's got a major league hitting stroke and a Texas League brain. Kim doesn't want to be a closer. He fancies himself as a starter. It's dishonorable for a Korean to be a closer; it is muy macho to be a starter. Problem for Kim: if he's on he may be able to get through the order once, after that it's fire and fall back. Womack is all around good ballplayer who get the most out his talents. Unlike most player he gains strength as the season progresses. Of all the D-Backs in the proposed trade, I would miss Womack the most.

As for the World Series, local pundits want D-Backs fans to must antipathy for the Giants. Frankly, given the world situation--When I was between the ages of 5-9, I had a cousin who would always ask me, "what do you think of the world situation?"--I'll save my animus for the murderous Islamofascist brutes and thugs whose aim is return the world to the 9th century AD. Back to series, as I see it, it's an even match. I've been waiting for the Giants pitching to falter since Labor Day and they've held fast under very difficult circumstances. I like the Angles' bats, but if the Giants continue to pitch as well as they have, they should be the champs.

9/11 Reading

Read a couple of very good articles dealing with the aftermatch of the WTC attack. Atlantic Monthly had a three-part series (July/Aug, Sept, Oct issues), American Ground: The Unbuilding of the World Trade Center (excerpts only), by William Langeweische. Esquire (Sept) September (click on the September link for a portfolio of images) by C.J. Chivers. Each story is excellent and will reward you well for your time.

Perhaps the most distrubring aspect of the WTC scene, and an aspect that has yet to be nauseatingly overcoverd by TV news, was the looting that was done by recovery workers. Its a strange counterpoint to the heroic works of those who entered the doomed buildings. The looting gives you pause to reflect on human nature.

A piece written 7/30/02. Practicing my uploads.

Sunday broke a beautiful day for golf. Renegade thunderheads, the remnants of a couple of days worth of gulley washers, patrolled the desert skies. Their billowy tops catching the colors of dawn well before “Uncle Sol” rose over the mountains to the East. The rains and cloud cover cooled the desert temporarily. With luck and some breeze, we’d finish our round in relative comfort well before summer’s blast furnace fired up and roasted everyone and everything near the desert floor.

I got up before dawn to make the trip south and east to Tucson. I had every intention of making “Casablanca” (Whitey’s house) Saturday evening. However, a simple late Saturday afternoon conversation with the better half turned into an earnest discussion of which color to paint the kitchen. I was two-beers deep into which shade of tan/yellow/peach/butter goes best with the tile when a Sunday morning drive became necessity.

The desert between Tucson and Phoenix will never, ever make the cover of Arizona Highways. It’s composed of scrubby, lowland desert that is flat, hot, and treeless. It is so barren, forsaken, and lacking in commercial promise that it was declared an Indian reservation. This land is home to various tribes who subsided on hunting and gathering before they were hunted and gathered and placed in this treeless, dusty expanse. The natives get the last laugh now as their casinos sit on the flanks of Phoenix’s expanse and rake in cake by the shovelful. Now, as one speeds from Phoenix to Tucson, new signs of native prosperity dot the desert—perhaps the most interesting are the casino-funded renal care facilities that reclaim the vital organs of those who had their native diets replaced with pork rinds and orange soda.

But, I digress. Tucson sits a couple thousand feet higher than Phoenix, and it’s surrounded on three sides by towering mountains. The good Franciscans who settled Tucson did so because they were hoping to convert everyone on the road to El Dorado. They stopped in Tucson because it’s climate is relatively mild, for a desert climate, and it sits square in the path of the summer monsoon thunderstorms, which come rumbling due north from Old Mexico dumping twice the amount of rainfall seen in Phoenix. The result is splendid spectacle of flora and fauna, perhaps the best found in the Sonoran desert.

I’ll forgo details of breakfast at Whitey’s. There only so much one can tell about Seadog ironing yet another Hawaiian shirt. There was a brief discussion and much braying when I spotted an article in the Sunday Sports section that told of UofA’s decision to duck Nebraska and Alabama this football season and play Northern Arizona instead. Never let it be said that coach John Mackovic is a man of courage and honor.

We played The Gallery a mountain/desert course that is cut through the canyons of the Tortellina Mountains, which lie due west of Tucson proper. The view from the first tee stretches for scores of miles in three directions. The Tortellinas, according to Whitey, hold the world’s largest population of rattlesnakes, and even though we did a fair bit of tromping in prime rattler habitat, we didn’t see any snakes. The Tortellinas themselves are strewn with massive boulders and saguaros, but not so steep that a person couldn’t hike them given provisions. It doesn’t take much imagination to substitute Geronimo and his colleagues for the lone, sentinel saguaros that sit near the peaks.

This was the third outing in four days for Whitey and Seadog. It didn’t take long for them to warm up head for the first tee. They got ready. Teed their balls and hit big drives. Whitey’s ball faded a little but stayed in the fairway. Seadog hit a mammoth hook that was swallowed by a huge bunker saving it from rattler land. I hadn’t played in a week. My first drive stared left and stayed left going into the desert. Boyd, my cart mate, is an expert ball finder. He found my ball and I hacked it back into the fairway.

All Whitey’s side games were in force. There were Hogans and greenies, Yamagouchis and stickies. There were others, I am sure, but all that distracts me. Golf is hard enough with me, my clubs, the ball, and the course all entangled. I can’t worry about Baskett’s lob wedge from the neighboring green. There were presses and stroke holes. There was constant chatter about who had done what to whom. There was little visible regret when an errant shot went whistling into a mountainside.

All in all, everyone was on their best behavior although shouting in some canyons made for echoes that must have been disturbing to some of the slumbering locals. The course itself is good. Maybe a four out of five stars. However the pro shop, the staff, and the other amenities reek with the stink of phony prestige and privilege manqué. It’s like every asshole who works there thinks he’s Curtis Goddamn Strange.

As usual, form followed function. I struggled to make pars, although I should get some props for hitting the big boy’s tees. I am very proud to have played the entire round with the same ball, a rare occurrence in desert/mountain golf. Mr. Baskett putted bravely and accurately in an attempt to save a shot and a dollar here and there. And Mr. White played very well albeit complaining long and loud that he didn’t hit a decent drive until the 18th. So, how did the $$$ thing work between Whitey and Seadog? We’ll, after carefully counting all the dots, dashes, and everything else on the scorecard, Whitey announced that Seadog was out a some cash. Seadog pleaded for an out of court settlement, which Mr. Whitey begrudgingly accepted.

After golf it was back to Casa Blanca where Whitey tossed on a roast, potatoes, and corn on the cob on the grill. We sat back and watched the D-backs win and counted coup. After a few hours, we ate prime rib, potatoes, and corn. We toasted our friendship. I drove Seadog to the PHX airport. We called LaReau but he didn’t answer. He's in Savannah these days, and the three-hour time difference between us meant he had gone to bed before we called.

Cheers